


Elf Braids

by ZadieWrites



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Father-Son Relationship, Fluff, Gen, Hair Braiding, I have a weakness for platonic hair fluff, Legolas Greenleaf & Tauriel Friendship, Platonic Relationships, Pre-The Hobbit, The Hobbit - Freeform, Young Legolas Greenleaf, hair fluff, implied orc threat, just some father son fluff, poor dead bird, thranduil is a good dad fight me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-11-28 21:06:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18213626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZadieWrites/pseuds/ZadieWrites
Summary: A fluffy one-shot in which Thranduil braids his son's hair. That's it.





	Elf Braids

**Author's Note:**

> I recently rewatched the Hobbit, so I found myself in the Tolkien fandom once more.

K’thunk. Was the soft sound the arrows made as they stuck into the targets. Young Legolas and Tauriel kept hitting bullseye after bullseye. At the moment, they were in their late teens and their practice had gotten to the point where it was almost boring. They kept having to move further and further from the targets. 

 

And Legolas wanted to shoot something living. That’s what he was thinking as he saw a bright, yellow songbird flutter in the trees, as he was reloading. He glanced over and the bird rested on a branch about thirty feet away from where Legolas, and his childhood friend were standing. They used a clearing in the woods to do their practice, and the bird was inside the woods. 

 

“I bet I can hit that bird in the eye.” Legolas told Tauriel. 

 

“What would you use to bet with?” she questioned, brushing a strand of auburn hair behind her delicate, pointed ear. 

 

Legolas thought for a moment. “If I miss, I’ll maintain your weapons for a month.” 

 

“Alright then. And if you hit it?” 

 

“You do the same for me.” 

 

“Agreed.” 

 

Legolas took aim, focusing on the finch . . . and released. The arrow flew . . . and the bird fell down. He ran to the place where it fell and he saw the bird laying, dead on the ground, with a large, wooden arrow shaft in its eye. With a truly Thranduilion smirk, he picked up the bird, by the arrow and walked it over to Tauriel. 

 

“Looks like I’ve won the bet.” He told her. 

 

“Why are you carrying it around-” she muttered. 

 

“Because, I’m actually quite proud of this accomplishment. I think I’ll show Father.” 

 

“Of course you will, I’m sure he won’t object at all to having a dead animal dragged through his halls.” 

 

“Worse things have been dragged through his halls.” Legolas shrugged before leaping off. 

 

He held the dead bird on the arrow like a piece of candy on a stick as he made his way back to the wooden castle. When he made it inside, he began to ran through the halls, then as he came to the throne room hall, he bumped into something, which was unlike him, and fell backwards. Legolas looked up and realized what he had bumped into. His father, who was looking down at him, then looked at what he was holding. 

 

“Why have you brought a dead bird inside?” he asked him, with a sigh. 

 

“I shot it through the eye at thirty feet away!” the prince announced, scrambling up on his feet. 

 

The pride in Thranduil’s gaze was undeniable but he kept glancing at the feathered corpse with distaste. He pointed to one elven guard and said, “You. Get rid of it.” 

 

Legolas handed the arrow with the bird hanging on the end of it to said guard, who took it and carried it away. 

 

“Needless to say, I’m pleased that you’re making such practice in your combat training but please don’t ever bring a dead animal inside the castle again.” the king told him. 

 

“. . . I won’t, Father.” 

 

Thranduil studied the elf boy for a moment before saying, “You braided your hair wrong.” 

 

“. . . I did?” 

 

“Come with me, I’m going to fix it.” said Legolas’ father, grabbing his forearm. 

 

“I can do it myself-!” protested Legolas. 

 

“Evidently not.” he replied, carelessly, bringing him beside the carved wood throne. 

 

“Sit.” Thranduil told him, pushing him onto the step. 

 

Realizing there was nothing he could do to prevent this, he sat down in front of the throne. His father sat down on the throne and started to undo Legolas’ messy braids. It was Thranduil who’d taught him to braid in the first place but Legolas was only seventeen and still hadn’t mastered it. 

 

He glanced back at Thranduil, who forced his head back to a front-facing position and told him to hold still. As Legolas grew his relationship with his father had only become more tumultuous and complicated, and Thranduil, being as emotionally distant as he was had assisted the ever-growing rift between them. 

 

And even when the elf king tried to show affection he sometimes failed. Sometimes he couldn’t stop himself from letting some petty criticism slip through. Other times, the gesture was simply too subtle. 

 

Therefore Legolas was left wondering why Thranduil still cared about things like the state of his braids and how accurate his archery was, as he felt his father comb through his hair and start braiding it. 

 

He did hope no one would walk in, it would embarrass Legolas greatly, to have people learn that the prince still needed his father’s help with his hair. It felt like his peers had mastered their braids already. Legolas had seen Tauriel do it without a mirror. He preferred to just tie it up against the back of his head and be done with it. But he’d been told that if he was to fight alongside elven warriors, his hair needed to look like that of an elven warrior. 

 

When Thranduil said this to Legolas, Legolas’ response was usually along the lines that, the ponytail was a lot safer, as when the hair is left free for the most part, it’s an easy handle for enemies to grab and pull. This argument, which seemed perfectly sensible to Legolas, never succeeded in changing anyone’s mind. 

 

“Do I have to have my hair braided when I’m not fighting?” Legolas asked. 

 

“Not necessarily, but if you’re going to braid your hair, you might as well learn to do so properly.” Thranduil told him, his hands crossing over one another, quickly, as he formed three neat braids at the back of his son’s head. 

 

“I like it when it’s braided, I only wish that it wasn’t so difficult.” 

 

“It’s not difficult once you get used to it.” answered the king, softly. 

 

“Apparently, I’m more adept at archery and swordplay.” Legolas mentioned. 

 

“I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t kill small creatures who can’t fend for themselves, all the same.” 

 

“. . . I can’t kill anything bigger.”

 

“. . . well, soon enough, we’ll have an intruder and you can shoot them in the head.” 

 

“Like a person?” 

 

“Or worse.” 

 

“. . . is there actually a threat?” 

 

A long moment passed and then Thranduil said, “No.” but not . . . in a tone that was particularly convincing. 

 

Legolas wanted to pull away at that moment and demand to know what was being hid from him. But he didn’t. His hair was in someone’s else’s hands and he wasn’t willing to risk that. 

 

Then he heard a sword unsheathe behind him, and a flash of metal at the corner of his eye. Panic started in his chest as he realized his father had unsheathed his sword.

 

“What are you doing?!” he questioned, starting to shift away, and then the sword swung across his head, lightning fast, and was placed neatly back in its holder. 

 

“You had a split end.” Thranduil pointed out, calmly, dropping a few pieces of damaged, golden hair, onto the floor. 

 

“I thought you were going to chop my head off . . .” Legolas muttered. 

 

“Why would I do that?” questioned Thranduil. 

 

“I don’t know why you do a lot of the things you do, Father.” 

 

“I wish ill will on many people but you are not one. I assure you.” 

 

“. . . sometimes I doubt that.” 

 

“You do?” he inquired as he tied the three braids together. 

 

“. . . every month or so.” 

 

“. . . I don’t want you to doubt it anymore.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, I sincerely hope I wasn't the only one who wanted this, in reality, I deeply crave for any scenes in which Thranduil gets to be a dad.


End file.
